Aboriginal chiefs renew plea for ambulance services

This month's tragic drowning death of an eight-year-old child should not have happened, Chief Jean-Roch Ottawa of the Conseil des Atikamekw de Manawan said in Montreal Wednesday. "But because of an absence of ambulance services, another one of our children died," Ottawa said.

Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador Chief Ghislain Picard (right), Chief Jean-Roch Ottawa (centre) of the Atikamekw community of Manawan and Grand Chief of the Atikamekw Nation, Constant Awashish at a press conference in Montreal Wednesday, September 21, 2016 where they voiced their concerns about the lack of ambulance service in Manawan. John Kenney / Montreal Gazette

When an accident happenson the remote reserve of Manawan, it’s a 90-minute drive on an unpaved dirt road to reach an ambulance, and about three hours more to get to the closest hospital.

This month’s tragic drowning death of an eight-year-old child should not have happened, Chief Jean-Roch Ottawa of the Conseil des Atikamekw de Manawan said in Montreal Wednesday. “But because of an absence of ambulance services, another one of our children died,” Ottawa said.

The Atikamekw community of Manawan in the Lanaudière region, 250 kilometres north of Montreal, has demanded emergency prehospitalization services or ambulance transport for its population of 2,500 for decades, Chief Ottawa said. Every time the government’s response has been no, he added.

“Is it because we are aboriginal? Are we second-class citizens? The drama of an eight-year-old dying …,” Ottawa said. “No parent in Quebec would accept this.”

Flanked by Constant Awashish, grand chief of the Atikamekw First Nation, and Ghislain Picard, chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL), Chief Ottawa demanded the Quebec government, specifically, Health Minister Gaétan Barrette, respond to demands for ambulance services in emergency situations.

Julie White, Barrette’s press secretary, referred all questions to the CISSS Lanaudière, the local health department covering the Lanaudière area.

The Lanaudière health department confirmed it has the Manawan file in hand.

“They demanded an ambulance immediately, which wasn’t possible,” Pascale Lamy, responsible for communications for the Centre integré de santé et de service sociaux de Lanaudière, said of the meeting with a delegation from Manawan held on Sept. 16 in its offices in Joliette.

Another meeting has been scheduled at the health department Thursday to re-evaluate and assess the situation, Lamy said.

However, delegates from the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador, gathered in Montreal Wednesday to discuss First Nations’ policing services, say gaps — in health, education, policing — have consistently plagued their communities.

Manawan is 86 kilometres from St-Michel-des-Saints that’s accessible only by a dirt road through the woods. The reserve’s history has been stained with lost lives: The Quebec coroner deemedthe reserve’s prehospital services inadequate and the death of a local resident in 1998, avoidable. In 2009, the coroner questioned emergency services in the death of a two-year-old infant. And on Sept. 1, an eight-year-old child drowned in a lake on the reserve.

The community has eight first responders who are limited in what they can do; they are not trained asambulance technicians to provide medical emergency care, such as starting intravenous lines and keeping air passages open.

There’s an ambulance helicopter parked at LaVérendrye Park, and an ambulance at Mont-Laurier, Picard said, and these are up to an hour and a half away.

Manawan representatives said a Quebec public servant has refused their request for an ambulance, Picard said.

Not having ambulance services is a weak link in the health chain, said Awashish, evoking a hockey analogy. Manawan’s first responders are playing both defence and goalie, he said. “And it’s not working.”

“Our lives are not worth less. We need a response. I need to know that members of my community will be safe.”

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